Christopher Ash - Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be

Martin had just announced his engagement, and was being congratulated at coffee time at work. He and Kathy were Christians. But although his colleagues seemed pleased, he knew that about two - thirds of them were already living quite openly with their boyfriends or girlfriends. And, to be honest, although they tried to be pleased for Martin, they couldnt really understand why he was bothering with marriage.

One of them, Max, had been involved with his Christian Union at school and knew quite a bit about the Bible and Christian faith. Max challenged Martin (in a not unfriendly way): Were all pleased for you, of course. But why dont you and Kathy just live together? Itd be much cheaper and its much more sensible reallymuch less trouble if it doesnt work out. Or [with a hint of hostility] maybe you think the rest of us are living in sin?

Groucho Marx, in the film Animal Crackers , said that marriage is a great institution, but who wants to live in an institution? A good friend of mine even proposed to his wife by asking her, with a twinkle in his eye, if she wanted to join him by coming to live in an institution! My friend was right. Marriage is a great institution. It is one of the great givens of the world, both in the sense that it is not negotiable (because it is given in creation) and in the sense that it is a gift of Gods grace. In this chapter we explore from the Bible why it is good, and why the boundaries and shape of marriage are a blessing. We ask, What is the point of the marriage institution?

In chapter 2 we saw that there are three purposes for marriage: children, relationship, and public order. And each of these is to be used in the service of God. Chapter 3 explored the purpose of children and chapters 4 and 5 the purpose and shape of the marriage relationship. We turn now to public order: marriage as a safeguard against sexual chaos.

Sex Is to Be Surrounded by the Marriage Boundary

Many people think that boundaries are not good, but annoyingly restrictive and arbitrary. The boundaries are clear: the Bible teaches consistently that sexual intimacy is good within marriage and wrong in all other contexts. In both the Old and New Testaments there are two distinct word groups. On the one hand, there are words for adultery or to commit adultery. Adultery is when a married person has sex with someone who is not their husband or wife.

The other group is usually translated sexual immorality, or, in older translations, fornication. In Greek this is the word group from which we get pornography (which means the portrayal of sexually immoral behavior). Sexual immorality has a broader meaning than adultery. It covers all sexual intimacy outside of marriage, including sex before marriage, sex while living together, homosexual acts, and sex with animals.

The Bible speaks consistently against these things because it understands the goodness of marriage. The boundaries of marriage need to be guarded. This is what the writer to the Hebrew Christians means when he writes, Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral [the pornos : anyone who indulges in sexual intimacy outside marriage] and adulterer (Heb. 13:4). Adultery obviously dishonors marriage; but so does all sexual immorality. Marriage is to be held in honor as the only right context for sex. The Bible is clear on this.

This means that to love another person enough for sex means to love them enough to have publicly committed yourself to him or her for life in marriage. Short of that commitment, however passionately you may say you love someone, actually you dont love him or her nearly enough for sex. So the proper Christian response to a couple who want to sleep together unmarried is to ask, How much do you love one another? Do you really love one another enough for sex? For if you really do, then you will show that love by first making the public commitment of marriage. And if you are not ready for that public promise, then you are not ready for sex, however much you may want it and feel that you love one another. It isnt simply a question of what or how you feel, because love is much more than feelings, and feelings alone are a very unreliable guide to love.

Human Beings Rebel against This Boundary

Human beings have always kicked against this institution and resented these clear boundaries. This includes people like me who write about these things. We all fall short, in thought and desire if not in deed. Let those who think they stand take heed lest they fall.

In the last half - century living together unmarried is easily the most significant way that Gods boundary has been crossed. This custom began in a small way in the 1960s among divorcees, but is now most common among young couples who have never married. Between 2006 and 2010 a large survey in the United States found that 48 percent of American women between 15 and 44 had lived together with a partner as their first sexual union, and presumably a similar proportion of men. Back in 1995 this figure had been about 34 percent, so it is rising steadily and may become the dominant practice.

Typically these first cohabitations lasted between one and a half and three years. Around two in five led on to marriage, but many simply dissolve. In history there have been different cultural ways to enter marriage. These have at times included, in some cultures, what has been called common- law marriage, in which a man and women living together were regarded by their society as being married. But what we see now is different. Couples choose to live together in a relationship which is by definition not marriage; marriage is available to them, but they choose not to enter it.

In this chapter I want to help us to understand why, paradoxically, this loosening of Gods boundaries is a move toward slavery and away from freedom, toward law and away from grace. That is, I want us to see what is the point of the marriage institution and why its boundaries are gifts of Gods grace. If you are living together unmarried or thinking of doing so, I do not want to condemn you, but to help you see that you are choosing a fragile alternative. I want to invite you into Gods good gift of marriage. If you are a Christian, I want to help you see how we can commend marriage, not as restrictive do-gooders, but with cheerfulness and confidence.

God Has Put Moral Order into Creation

First, I need to say a word about the created order. This is a countercultural idea, but it is very important. The Bible teaches that God made the universe. Never mind the debates about exactly how or when; they will be distractions from our subject. But God the Creator made the universe; it all comes from his hand. And he made it an ordered place. As the story is told in the structured form of Genesis 1, we see boundaries being put in place: between sky and earth, between waters and waters, and so on. There would be no point in doing science if there were no order in the universe. Scientists do not create order; they discover it.

But the order in the universe is not just in physical things. It is moral and not just material. There is also order in moral things and in how human beings relate. Just as a scientist does not invent physical order, but discovers it, so we do not invent morality, but rather discover in the Bible the morality that has been given to us by a good God.

To say this about sex goes against the grain with many people today, who think that our sexuality is some fluid substance that can be shaped by us any way we choose. There is no order given by God, they say, only rules made by power - hungry human groups wanting to impose their way on others. So the church is seen as a group of traditionalist human beings who just want to impose their morality on the rest, who strongly resent this unwanted intrusion into their personal freedom.